Over the past couple of days, I’ve had the opportunity to play around with a BlackBerry 10 dev alpha device in advance of RIM’s unveiling of the OS later this month. Here’s a shocker – BB10 is very good.

I won’t go into a review, because I’ve been asked nicely to not do so. I have the device in hand for a specific purpose, and reviewing BB10 is not included in that. But what I will say is that RIM has taken some of the best parts of iOS, Windows Phone and even the once-stellar WebOS, rolled them all together and produced an operating system that is simply a joy to use.

The smartphone market right now is dominated by iOS and Android. That’s a fact that we all know. As you might have read, I’m quite a big fan of Windows Phone, and I honestly think that it has a very good shot at being a big player in the market.

But.

RIM has done its homework. And it has a loyal base of fans. There are millions of people who have either hung onto their BlackBerry devices or they’ve only parted with them begrudgingly. These people are the ones who can help the company to experience a rebirth.

The question that remains to be answered is whether or not three years of lagging innovation has driven a permanent nail into an already-precarious coffin lid.

I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that BB10 is deserving of attention and consumer wallets.